A special defense budget proposed by the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) is not viable, as it has no provisions for combat positions, maintenance or storage, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday.
The TPP on Monday sponsored a NT$400 billion (US$12.71 billion) bill to fund procurements of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), M109A7 self-propelled howitzers and other weapons.
However, the absence of key items means the ministry could not implement the proposal, Lieutenant General Huang Wen-chi, who heads the Department of Strategic Planning, told a news conference.
Photo: CNA
Citing the TPP’s budget for buying HIMARS as an example, Huang said that the bill fails to fund vehicle depots, and maintenance and repair facilities, as well as combat positions necessary to keep the artillery operational.
Without storage facilities, the systems would be subject to environmental damage, he said.
Government workers tasked with its implementation would be exposed to prosecutable negligence should the ministry enact a budget that only has funds for weapons purchases, he said.
The ministry’s budget proposal was written after careful assessment of operational realities, he said, adding that enacting the TPP’s bill would lead to problems.
The TPP bill lists details for systems to buy from the US, but does not include costs for construction, training and maintenance that must be done in Taiwan, said Lieutenant General Hsieh Chi-hsien (謝其賢), who heads the Comptroller Bureau.
The armed forces would not be able to field the systems if the TPP’s bill were passed, Hsieh said.
However, special budgets are legislation and cannot be amended until they go through the full legislative process, meaning that the military would have no way to make the weapons work unless it reduced the number purchased or waited for amendments, he said.
The TPP caucus in a statement called the ministry’s remarks “nonsense” and accused the government of lacking strategic vision.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government in 2019 asked the US to authorize the sale of M109A6s before bowing to Washington’s advice to purchase HIMARS, the statement said.
The government’s problem-prone submarine program and its proposal to buy US-made drones prone to frequency jamming are examples of wasteful spending, it said.
The government is spending money to pacify the public in lieu of military planning, the statement said.
“The DPP is using national defense and Taiwan-US ties as a pretext to pass a NT$1.25 trillion special budget to benefit foreign arms manufacturers,” it said.
The DPP caucus urged opposition lawmakers to allow the government’s budget to be deliberated concurrently with the TPP bill.
DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) said he respects the prerogative of TPP lawmakers to propose bills, but defense officials have knowledge that lawmakers might lack.
The ministry’s budget is a complete package that includes allocations for logistics, ammunition, Taiwan-US defense cooperation and efforts to secure national supply chains, Shen said.
“Putting off the matter further would be a show of policy indecision and lack of internal consensus,” DPP Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said.
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